Jobs' World

Too often, an early death leads to the birth of a myth. How many personalities who left the world too quickly are then seen adorned with every virtue as soon as their death knell sounded and decided their fates? How many hypocritical and grandiose tributes, outdated requiems and simplified epitaphs have been composed? These “stars,” regardless of their art, are more effortlessly becoming legends, whatever their work may be.

Steve Jobs, the iconic founder of Apple, died on October 5 at just 56 years old from a rare cancer he had been fighting since 2004. His death caused a maelstrom of reactions among world leaders as well as with the common population, but also created many surreal scenes when the stores of the Apple brand, the famous Apple stores, were turned into chapels dedicated to the loss of a true guru, covered in flowers and candles. There is also the internet, a supreme channel of expression for boundless grief from disciples who have lost their prophet. The most daring comparisons are already flourishing: Moses, Mandela (rest assured, he is not dead!), John Lennon, Kennedy, Gutenberg, da Vinci and Einstein.

Jobs was an icon long before his death: A rare, not to mention unique businessman. He was not a “simple” visionary or even a fabulous moneymaker, as the Americans say. He not only created technologically efficient objects, he invented a universe that he managed to impose on everyone. Jobs revolutionized the daily lives of millions of people, got rid of dogmas and imagined products that generated their own new needs (and therefore new products). He transformed the computer but also communication, data transfer, music, animation, management and marketing. He was always several moves ahead of the competition, worn out by the chases he led. For better or worse depending on your point of view, he always kept the image of his empire as that of a young, modern, open and rebellious company whereas it is nothing short of a many-headed, ultra-capitalist hydra: hegemonic, opaque and impenetrable, turning customers like suppliers into captives subject to a closed off universe. Hats off to the artist! Steve Jobs was a true magician of modern times: A real legend.